Process
Campus Vision 2050 is being developed through comprehensive engagement with the campus community and Musqueam, and informed by existing UBC policy, principles, future space needs and societal imperatives. The process also incorporates feedback from focus groups held as part of the pre-planning work that concluded in December 2021.
Community input and feedback is being used to help envision the future we want to see for the campus and assess trade-offs and choices for how the university uses its lands to best respond to the complexity of interests, needs and aspirations.
Each phase of the process builds on and adapts to what is learned through engagement and technical analysis.
Existing university policies, critical university needs, and direction from the Board of Governors will provides a framework, and the engagement process is highly responsive to emerging issues and ideas.
Campus Vision 2050 timeline
What we are working towards
Campus Vision 2050 will result in:
- 30-Year Vision: a high-level, long-term description of the campus along with a series of conceptual plans and diagrams. It will address areas such as land uses, transportation, open space and ecological relationships and connections, where, when and generally how much development there will be, places where there will be no development, and the general look and feel of the campus. As part of this phase, the timing and proposed form of development of the future Stadium Neighbourhood will be considered and adjusted in the context of the long-term vision for the campus.
- Updated Land Use Plan: covers the entire campus, including academic and neighbourhood housing areas,* and establishes the long-term direction for land use on campus, including policies for building heights, neighbourhood densities, and open space amounts.
- 10-Year Campus Plan: will guide how academic facilities, housing, transportation systems, green and open space, and community amenities are accommodated over the next 10 years in alignment with the 30-Year Vision.
*Before a neighbourhood area can be built, a Neighbourhood Plan is prepared that details the layout and development program, following the policies set out in the Land Use Plan.
You can find more information about land use planning at UBC here (links to the Campus + Community planning website).
What Campus Vision 2050 will include
Campus Vision 2050 focuses on the physical development of the Vancouver campus, both academic and neighbourhood lands and result in updates to UBCs Land Use Plan and a new 10-Year Campus Plan. It will include:
- Overall spatial layout of the campus, including the relationships between land use, development and the ecological, social, and physical connectivity requirements for a healthy thriving community of the future.
- Defining areas of growth and no growth.
- Exploration of academic and neighbourhood development and density ranges, and corresponding proportions of services, amenities and open space.
- Changes to existing land use policies will be considered including: land use categories and boundaries and future neighbourhood development amounts and building heights.
- Areas of opportunity within existing neighbourhoods or precincts will also be reviewed in the context of the future needs.
- Coordination with broader planning that is considering how UBC’s physical presence in Metro Vancouver will evolve, including at UBC Robson Square, UBC Learning Exchange, Great Northern Way Campus, and other existing and potential sites across the region, including Surrey.
- Quick start projects that can demonstrate action on immediate campus needs.
Planning approach
Campus Vision 2050 will ensure the future direction for the campus builds on what makes UBC a special place and enhances the livability and character of the campus within its unique context.
It is addressing the complexity of needs and aspirations through a whole systems approach that considers the social, ecological, cultural and financial dimensions of the plan holistically, to create a net-positive benefit for the campus, including sustainable growth of the endowment.
To do so, Campus Vision 2050 is:
- exploring and assessing a wide range of development scenarios against qualitative and quantitative measures for optimizing value and benefit to the university, the community and the land, including:
- Musqueam and campus Indigenous community values, land use efficiency, campus character and livability, urban design, open space, social and community wellbeing, climate, natural systems health; and
- the financial viability of different neighbourhood development scenarios, including the ability to support affordable housing for the UBC community and the broader region and future contributions to other university priorities such as UBC’s Endowment Fund and a potential financial contribution to bring SkyTrain to UBC;
- employing methods, processes and approaches that specifically seek out the best relationships and proportions among all the parts so the campus community and ecology thrive as an integrated whole; and
- supporting the development of planning options with technical and design analysis and metrics, leading urban design and sustainable community planning research, and promising practices review.
Guiding principles and criteria, technical and design analysis, and community input and feedback is guiding the generation and assessment of a range of options for how the university uses its lands to best respond to the needs and aspirations.
The process is striving to maximize synergies and co-benefits in order to meet as many of the institutional and collective needs and aspirations as possible. At the same time, full consensus on options may not be achievable and tradeoffs and choices will likely be required.
Governance
The Board of Governors has decision making authority for the planning process, with the province responsible for adoption of any Land Use Plan amendments. An Advisory Committee on Campus Vision 2050 and Rapid Transit is providing advice to the Board of Governors throughout the process given the integrated nature of transportation and land use planning and the close dependencies between these two strategic initiatives. The process will also closely align with the Musqueam Relationship Agreement work underway, and include the co-development of a unique UBC-Musqueam engagement approach.
The UBC Executive is providing Campus + Community Planning with input and guidance through the process, along with a Community Advisory Committee and technical level advisory committees, to coordinate across the administration and with external agencies.
Academic engagement, in addition to the range of community engagement activities and events, includes input and advice from the Provost’s Office, the Committee of Deans, the Senate Academic Building Needs Committee, the UBC Planning and Property Advisory Committee as well as direct engagement with departments across the institution.
The University Neighbourhoods Association (UNA) is engaged as an advisory body to the Board on matters that directly impact the experience of those living in the university neighbourhoods.
UBC Properties Trust is engaged throughout the process in the role as master developer of UBC’s neighbourhoods and developer and manager of UBC-affiliated housing in the neighbourhoods. This includes providing UBC with advice on the financial considerations of different options for future residential development.
You can learn more about the governance of Campus Vision 2050 by accessing the Final Terms of Reference (Link opens a pdf).